Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/375772
BurnaBy Board of Tr ade 2014/2015 • MeMbership & resource Directory 7 B By the time you read this message, a few months will have passed since I wrote it. Perhaps longer. While it is impossible to predict the state of affairs tomorrow, next month or next year, I can tell you that today is a good day. It's a bright summer morning, the office is quiet save for the cadenced clacking of keyboards outside my door, and our board of trade members all across Burnaby are opening their doors for business. I'm proud of the community we are helping to build here tucked neatly in the centre of the Lower Mainland. I'm proud of our partnerships with so many wonderful organizations throughout Burnaby, particularly with the City itself, whose strategic plans for social, environmental and economic development have created the building blocks for sustainable prosperity now and well into the future. Mostly I'm proud of our board of trade members, whose passion, dedication and commitment to this organization allow us to serve on behalf of businesses everywhere. one of our major themes over the past year at the Burnaby Board of Trade has been advocacy. While our services, events and benefits will always be the way we create value for membership, we also understand that advocacy on behalf of all business is where we can make the greatest positive difference in this community. Late last year we successfully advanced the idea of inter-municipal business licences, reducing costs and streamlining processes for construction- and trades-related businesses across the region. Since then, we have been active in advocating on issues of transportation across Metro Vancouver, and have helped ensure business priorities were properly considered by the provincial and federal governments in their 2014 budgets. We have expressed our concern with the new Canadian anti-Spam Legislation and Multi-Materials BC regulations, and have worked hard for exemptions for those businesses that would have been most negatively affected. Moving forward into 2015, we will continue to lend the strong and united voice of our entire membership towards advancing our goals. The number of people who have worked and helped and supported and sponsored and volunteered their time for the benefit of the Burnaby Board of Trade are too numerous to count. I want to sincerely thank each and every one of you. I look forward to working beside you all for many more years to come. paul holden, President & Ceo Burnaby Board of Trade Message from the CeO paul holden While our services, events and benefits will always be the way we create value for membership, we also understand that advocacy on behalf of all business is where we can make the greatest positive difference in this community.